Effect of heat shrinkable tape layer number on mechanical properties and quality of tubular CFRP components obtained by filament winding

The most common manufacturing process for tubular Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) components is Filament Winding (FW), that requires a subsequent curing process to obtain the final parts. The most widely used curing process is the autoclave one, that involves high environmental and economic impacts. Then, other curing solutions must be investigated to find a valuable sustainable alternative. In this context, the present work aims at studying the effect of the number of heat shrinkable tape (HT) layers applied on the wound CFRP components before the oven curing process, on the mechanical properties, thickness uniformity and void content of the tubular parts. To this purpose, ring tensile tests and tomography analysis were performed on ring specimens cut from tubular parts realized by FW, using different HT layers. It was demonstrated that the increase in HT layers allows an improvement both of mechanical properties and thickness uniformity, and a reduction in void content.